Kubovic
The duchy referred to by some as the Land of Night is located in the Northeastern Kaselreich, Kobuvic is only technically part of the Empire at all. It has not supplied troops to the Kaiser in decades, and it pays its taxes in timber that bleeds red sap, and has been deemed by Imperial inspectors to only be useful as firewood. The rulers of Kubovic, the Ravensburgs, have never once arrived at the Emperor's summer palace for the usual revelry or spring carnival, though they always send very finely boxed gifts, which the Emperor has not unwrapped once in a hundred and twenty years. There is a room in the Imperial Palace in Kasel that is filled to the bring with dozens and dozens of packages, each with an unopened letter, an identical signature written in blood scrawled on its corner. It is the worst kept secret in the Reich that the Ravensburgs are vampires. Everyone knows it — even the peasants know it. The roads to Kubovic are unmarked, signs leading to Osterbija, Dace, even Valach all point the long way around the Karthakasel Divide, as though the spot of land pressed up against the high mountains doesn't even exist. The Osterbs themselves walled off their pass leading to Kubovic a century ago. The wall does not even have a gate. Imperial envoys sometimes risk cutting through the cursed duchy, but they have to be brought up the wall by rope ladder. It is a long climb. Ruler Duke Ankiseth von Ravensburg is not a Kamen — nobody is sure what he is — but he seems to rule justly, and his people rarely have anything negative to say about him. It is common knowledge that he is a vampire, but it is unclear if all of his "relatives" are, or how that is possible. Genosian Witch-Hunters regularly enter the country, but rarely go missing or return harmed. They come back frustrated and confused, but alive. Indigenes The Kubovski people are fairly normal, for folk who live under the constant shadow of an omnipresent abomination against God. They are dour, pale, with dark hair and blue or black eyes, and they tend not to take things too seriously. Many have left Kubovic, only to return in disgust as the outside world strikes them as frivolous and degenerate. The Ravensburgs, they say, know how to keep a country in order. Occasionally groups of them will emerge, armed, from the mountainous region, and sell their services as mercenaries. They always ask that half their pay be sent to the Ravensburgs rather than be given to them, and they tend to horde the rest, keeping to themselves in their barracks and tents, even camping away from other soldiers. They never participate in looting or pillage, and are terrified to death of offending their employers. For this reason they are often employed to guard sensitive areas or valuable treasures. They are terribly superstitious, and despise vanity in all of its forms. They are also frighteningly religious, even by the standards of most Genosians, and most spend an hour or more every night piling rocks and pebbles outside of their tents or barracks doors, then knocking them down the next morning. Adventurers from Kubovic are usually assumed to be of a superior stock to others. They are hard people, fearless, phlegmatic, strangely knowledgeable. They all seem to know how to read, and they are penny-pinchers to the last. But, if you have a haunting, a curse, or a strange disappearance, a Kubovski accent is what you go looking for. A few Kamen poems and idioms are worded in such a way that a Kubovski cannot possibly say them without revealing his native tongue, for this very reason. Category:Countries Category:Kaselreich